J. F. Smith (1804-1890)

John Frederick Smith, the popular author of the serial “Minnigrey,” published in the London Journal, was born in Norfolk in 1804. He published his first 3 volume novel, “The Jesuit,” before he was twenty and then wandered through Europe, Russia and the Holy Land, supporting himself by contributing articles to English and European periodicals as well as authoring dramas.

One of these articles was the “Death of the Mother of Napoleon,” from the Freemason’s Quarterly, 1836. He lived in France until 1848 then fled from the Revolution back home to England where he began his association with the London Journal. His historical romances were for the most part illustrated by John Gilbert, (later Sir John Gilbert, R. A.,) who drew his pictures without preliminary sketches, directly onto the woodblock, which was then cut away by a talented “woodpecker.”

The sensational serial “Minnigrey,” commenced on October 11, 1851, and made J. F. Smith a famous author. “Only Odysseus could bend the bow of Ulysses; and only J. F. Smith can handle as it deserves to be handled the immense intrigue devised by the author of Minnigrey,” gushed an anonymous critic at The Saturday Review in 1886.

Henry Viztelly said that the serial caused circulation of the London Journal to reach half-a-million copies. The story was translated into a dozen languages and was a sensation in the Dominion and America. Smith’s dramatic character driven romances matched the taste of the penny public, and in 1853 melodramas based on “The Will and the Way,” and “Women and Her Master,” thrilled crowds at both the City of London and the Victoria theatres.

Ralph Thomas recalled in Notes & Queries that in 1853 he searched mixed piles of dated penny periodicals outside the Holywell street booksellers for back numbers of “Minnigrey” and “The Will and the Way,” at four for a penny. The illustrations were more important to his collection than the text. Thomas recalled that the “individuality of each character in Gilbert’s illustrations was always recognizable without the slightest doubt. If a new person was brought in, we wondered, from the drawing, what part he (or she) was going to play in the story.”

Smith transferred his pen from the London Journal to Cassell’s Illustrated Family Paper and may have moonlighted for Reynolds’s Miscellany at that time as well, “The Lamplighter,” an 1854 serial adapted from a hit melodrama of the Little Nell type, seems to be in his remarkable style. A critic for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine noticed his work in Cassell’s in 1858 and was suitably impressed. (The Byways of Literature, Aug. 1858):

“We, for our own part, had supposed ourselves aware of the names at least of all the English lights of literature -- but our recent investigations have undeceived us. Here is one personage, for instance, whom rival publications vie for the possession of, and whom the happy successful competitor advertises with all the glow and effusion of conscious triumph, -- J. F. ; nay, let us be particular, -- John Frederick Smith, Esq. This gentleman is a great author, though nobody (who is anybody) ever was aware of it. We have no doubt that nothing but a conspiracy of spiteful critics could have kept his name so long veiled under this envious obscurity. He is “the author of ‘Dick Tarleton,’ ‘Phases of Life,’ ‘The Soldier of Fortune,’ ‘The Young Pretender,’ ”&c. ; yet we protest we never read a word of his writings, nor heard a word of his existence, until we spread out our sixpenny budget of light literature upon the June daisies. What matter? His portrait, from a photograph by Mayall, may be had in all those regions where his sway is acknowledged; and the everybody, who is nobody, bestows upon him that deep-rolling subterraneous universal applause which is fame. And we never knew of it! - with humiliation we own the limited and imperfect boundaries of our information; yet at the same time, by this public confession, exonerate ourselves from all share in the guilt of putting down or covering over the acknowledged genius of John Frederick Smith, Esquire.”

The Montreal Family Herald and Star Weekly, “Canada’s National Farm Newspaper,” ran serials from the London Journal and the British Family Herald story papers. One serial with the sensational title “The Hidden Ring; or, Satan Outwitted,” was begun on July 28, 1881. This had embarrassing consequences for the Family Herald, who did not realize that, just then, the celebrated J. F. Smith was residing across the border at Plattsburg, N. Y. On October 5, 1881 a headline blared

“MINNIGREY! By J. Frederick Smith. The story was commenced in the Star under the title of “The Hidden Ring,” and the original title of “Minnigrey” has been restored as the author was suffering injustice by the change.”

On re-issue of “Minnigrey” by Bradley & Co. in 1886, a reviewer for the Saturday Review stated erroneously that Smith was already dead. Smith was very much alive at the time. He died on or near May 7, 1890 in Plattsburg, New York at the ripe old age of 86. The Quarterly Review said in December of that year, Smith “founded a school of romance (begun by G. W. M. Reynolds) which is with us today.”

A writer for the New London Journal in 1906, on the paper’s reprinting of “Minnigrey,” said; “The present writer was in communication with him shortly before his death. His last days were happy and peaceful, and mainly occupied by pleasant talk about the old days when he lived the Bohemian life with such men as Douglas Jerrold, Charles Dickens, Sheridan Knowles, Bulwer Lytton, Alexandre Dumas and Eugene Sue.”

Anecdotes about Smith, “the most popular novelist in the world,” have a mythical quality and were repeated on both sides of the ocean whenever the subject of the eccentric “penny-a-liner” came up in a newspaper column. While in Rome, it was reported a church dignitary was seen leaving a house of ill repute. Smith suggested to the proper authorities that a reward be posted for the discovery of the true identity of the imposter in cardinal’s dress who had been observed leaving the premises and was made a Papal count.

“Those who worked in the offices of these two journals have many stories of him. Imagine a florid Bohemian, genial, red-cheeked, with thick curly hair, a loud, happy-go-lucky creature wearing a baggy blue overcoat. He would appear at the office in the morning when his salary fell due - never before ; would send out for a bottle of port and call for a boy to bring him writing-paper, blotting-paper and last week’s copy of the journal in which his novel was running. Hastily glancing over it, he satisfied himself as to the exact predicament in which he had last left his lovely heroine, and then unbuttoning his overcoat and choosing one from a pocketful of stubby quill pens, he wrote like a madman for two or three hours. At the end of this time he had completed another installment of the exciting story which was thrilling the souls of literally a million readers.

It was not always so. Publishers sometimes have had to follow him as far as to Jersey, and mount guard over the gifted author until the necessary “copy” was extracted; but we speak of ordinary days, when, tossing his uncorrected copy to the boy in attendance, he received his weekly stipend, and sending one boy for a good cigar and another to see that no dun haunted the front doorstep, the most popular author in the world stepped out upon the pavement and vanished for another week into some region where creditors, who vex the lives of Bohemians, could never discover him.”

J. F. McR. Was an acquaintance of Smith’s and added the following to his legend;

“Having handled Smith’s MS., I can appreciate the observation that he “wrote like a madman,” and used villainous quills. He was indeed the scourge of all such as set up types and emend the impressions thereof. His handwriting was exquisitely small. He would carefully loop all his t’s, cross all his l’s, dot everything possible except his i’s. Then, having fully indulged every darling vice of the slovenly penman, he would “mak siccar” by smearing the whole of each ink-wet page, apparently with his coat-sleeve. Naturally he was worshipped by the printers. Hence it was, that in an after-dinner speech at a wayze-goose, his press-corrector boldly laid claim to the joint-authorship of “Minnigrey,” on the ground that he (the corrector) and the compositors had been able to decipher barely one quarter of the words in that masterpiece, had “fudged for” another quarter, while the remaining half was entirely the fruit of the said corrector’s own ingenious vamping.

“Smith, like Thackeray, wrote with the devil ever at his elbow. The imp was one day startled by the sudden and unprecedented cessation of Mr. Smith’s pen. It was as if the sun had stood still. Still more was the boy amazed when this readiest of writers began to nibble his stodgy quill, gaze abstractedly at the grimy ceiling, take dreamy pulls at the port-wine, and, in fact, give every symptom of mental bankruptcy. When at length his ideas began again to flow, he gave them oral expression; but they were then totally unfit for publication. The devil by a laugh reminded the author of his presence. Turning upon him fiercely, Smith demanded, “Boy! Your name -- quick!” “George Markham, sir.” Never a word responded Smith, but, frowning portentously, at once resumed his fierce scribbling. The devil trembled lest suspension should follow naming. His mind was set at rest, however, when, in devouring the next installment of Mr. Smith’s novel, he found that his own name - George Markham - had been given to a new character in the tale. Thus did this lofty genius fling fame and immortality to the devil.”

The devil’s story was later used by J. M. Barry in his novel Tommy and Grizel, the penny author of the book (named Pym) was obviously based on stories about Smith.

Another story was related by Frank Jay in Peeps into the Past;

“John Cassell enticed J. F. Smith away from the LONDON JOURNAL, on to some publication of his own (‘Cassell’s Illustrated Family Paper’), and the pair kept the affair a profound secret. Smith, who always wrote his weekly installment of ‘copy’ at the LONDON JOURNAL office, chanced to be in the middle of a story for Stiff at the moment he had chosen for abandoning him. In this dilemma he had decided upon bringing the tale to a sudden close and to accomplish this artistically he blew up all the principal characters on board a Mississippi steamboat, and handed the “copy” to a boy in waiting. Thus, proud of having solved a troublesome difficulty, he descended the stairs, drew his payment for the installment, and directed his steps to La Belle Sauvage Yard, to take service under his new employers.

“When Stiff saw the number after it was printed off, and recognized how completely he had been tricked, he was thunderstruck: but he speedily secured a new novelist, Pierce Egan, the younger, I believe, who ingeniously brought about a resurrection of such of the characters as it was advisable to resuscitate, and continued the marvelous story in the LONDON JOURNAL for several months after.”

The only problem with this story is that it appears to have been a fantasy, the story referred to is “Masks and Faces,” commencing in the London Journal (Vol. 21, No. 539,) in 1856, Smith quit after the 12th chapter and the serial was concluded by Miss Emma Robinson, not Egan. No such incident as the explosion on the Mississippi steamboat occurs in the chapters attributed to Smith, but a similar story is mentioned by Ambrose Bierce in the Devil’s Dictionary under “Penny-A-Liner,” where the original story is attributed to an American author.

In later days Smith’s stories were often reprinted, “Amy Laurence; or, The Freemason’s Daughter,” (London Journal Vol. XIV No. 346, January 25, 1851,) was re-issued in 104 penny numbers by Henry Lea in 1860.

Frank Jay relates in Notes & Queries, April 8, 1922;

“Smith was a pure Bohemian, and it is related of him that whilst in the height of his popularity and enjoying the income of an Under-Secretary of State, he lived in seclusion in a boarding-house in Bloomsbury and would not associate himself with his fellow writers, one reason for this exclusiveness being his deafness, which prevented him from entering into profitable conversation with others.”

The Saturday Review notice, (Nov. 13, 1886,) after his (supposed) death, had this to say of Smith;

“What is certain is that J. F. Smith was a hard-working man of letters of the type (let us say) of Ponson du Terrail; that, if his English was elaborate and his sentiment a trifle obvious, he had a prodigious fund of invention; and that in his time he amused the toiling millions as much as anybody who has ever worked for them, the poet of Rocambole not excepted.”

*All illustrations by Sir John Gilbert R.A. from the John Dicks edition of Minnigrey.

Author of Black Bess

In 1923 the following request was asked of the readers of Notes & Queries

EDWARD VILES. - Information respecting Edward Viles, part author with the late Dr. F. J. Funivall, of ‘Rogues and Vagabonds in Shakespeare’s Time,’ would be of interest to readers as well as to

A. J. W. Barnes, S.W. 13.

The book referred to was the only book to date discovered bearing Edward Viles (1841-1891) name as author, “The Fraternitye of Vacabondes the groundworke of conny-catching,” published by N. Trubner & Co. for the Early English Text Society in 1869. In 1907 the book was reprinted by Chatto & Windus in the Shakespeare Library series under the title “The Rogues and Vagabonds of Shakespeare’s Youth: Audelay’s ‘Fraternitye of Vacabondes’ and Harman’s ‘Caveat.’”

Edward Viles, unless there were two gentlemen of that name, was an ardent Shakespearean scholar as was shown by his letter headed ‘Shakespeariana’ published in Notes & Queries [5th Series II p. 484] on December 19, 1874. Today he is most remembered for an anonymous penny dreadful; “Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road, a Tale of the Good Old Times,” published by Edward Harrison on August 8, 1863, when Viles was a youthful twenty-one years of age. This is not as improbable as it seems, many penny dreadful writers were learned in the history of felon literature.

To quote Frank Jay, Black Bess “ran to no less than 254 numbers and 2,028 pages, each number being illustrated. Allowing one number per week, it must have taken nearly five years to complete, a truly marvelous bit of work. The preface to the bound volume is dated 1868, but is it obvious the numbers were issued before that date.”

The heroes of Black Bess all share the good and bad qualities of the amiable criminal, and it would be hard for any reader to resist the highwaymen’s charm. Dick Turpin’s gang consists of Claude Duval, Tom King and Sixteen-string Jack. The four bound novels follow the well-known story of Dick Turpin, his Ride to York, his capture and his execution by hanging, where he voluntarily leaped off the platform to his death. Duval and the rest of the improbable characters are brought in to help alleviate the boredom of a 2028 page work. The author can involve Sixteen String Jack, or Tom King, or Duval or Turpin’s Maud in separate adventures and scrapes and help sustain the mad length of the serial. Captain Hawk is introduced in Book IV, page 1757, while all the characters are still alive. From this point on characters are decimated like flies, Maud is wounded in the breast and is buried in France, Duval is shot in a failed attempt to rescue Sixteen-String Jack, Turpin shoots Tom King, Black Bess is cruelly rode to her death, and Turpin is hung at Tyburn.

I thought till the last minute that the author may have spared Turpin, after all, the same (attributed) author, “Blueskin: a Romance of the Last Century,” (1866) ended with Jack Sheppard heading happily to France and freedom. Black Bess ends with Captain Hawk standing “at the opening of one of the strangest and most vicissitudinous (sic) careers that ever fell to the lot of man.” Captain Hawk is the hero of “The Black Highwayman, being the Second Series of Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road” begun in 1868 (Frank Jay says 1866-68, running to 86 Nos., 688 pages.) The copy I examined was a re-issue by Harrison in 172 weekly numbers at 688 pages, very different from Jay’s recollection. No title page, no date but a color cover and beautiful color plates.

The last work attributed to Viles was “Gentleman Clifford and his White Mare Brilliant; or, the Ladies’ Highwayman,” from 1864. If all these anonymously published works are from the pen of Edward Viles he must have been a remarkably prolific author to have been carrying on four serials weekly during 1863-1868! Montague Summers said that Viles main weakness was to appear in life as what he was not -- an author. That could be a comment on his wretched writing or it could mean he claimed authorship to works he had no connection with. He was rumored to have commissioned hacks to complete works that he then took the credit for.

Viles was not the only author credited with “Black Bess,” so was the celebrated author of “Minnigrey.” Andrew de Ternant wrote a letter to Notes & Queries [12 S. X. April 29, 1922, p. 333] claiming that “Thomas Catling (many years editor of Lloyd’s Weekly News) informed me in April 1890, that John Frederick Smith was the real author of ‘Black Bess,’ which was published in penny numbers. Mr. Catling said Smith’s remuneration was £3 10s. per week during the publication of the serial story. Smith often said he outlined his ‘Black Bess’ long before the publication of Harrison Ainsworth’s novel [Rookwood] on the same subject, and even thought of submitting his own version to the more popular novelist.”

“A large portion of the first fifty numbers of ‘Black Bess’ was written amid “eighteenth century surroundings” in the old office of Lloyd’s Weekly News ( a century and a half previously occupied by Samuel Richardson) in Salisbury Square, E. C. In fact Mr. Catling showed me the very desk Smith used. John Frederick Smith was always on cordial terms with Edward Lloyd, and was allowed the use of his favourite corner of the room and paper in writing his novels for other publishers.”

This turns out to have been a malicious hoax by Andrew de Ternant, a notorious liar.

So why was “Black Bess” considered the work of Edward Viles by Montague Summers, Frank Jay, Barry Ono, E. S. Turner and every writer since? The earliest known reference was originated by Robert Louis Stevenson in a Scribner’s Magazine article titled “Popular Authors” for July 4, 1888. Earlier, in “A Gossip on Romance,” R. L. S. spoke of his boyhood pleasures in ‘bloods’; “Give me a highwayman and I was full to the brim; a Jacobite would do, but the highwayman was my favourite dish.” Stevenson had progressed from studying lurid woodcuts and exposed text in newsvendor’s windows to the real article, penny dreadfuls in penny parts:

“My fall was brought about by a truly romantic incident. Perhaps the reader knows Neidpath Castle, where it stands, bosomed in hills, on a green promontory; Tweed at its base running through all the gamut of a busy river, from the pouring shallow to the brown pool. In the days when I was thereabout, and that part of the earth was made a heaven to me by many things now lost, by boats, and bathing, and the fascination of streams, and the delights of comradeship, and those (surely the prettiest and simplest) of a boy and girl romance-in those days of Arcady there dwelt in the upper story of the castle one whom I believe to have been the gamekeeper on the estate. The rest of the place stood open to incursive urchins; and there, in a deserted chamber, we (Stevenson and his sister) found some half-a-dozen numbers of Black Bess, or the Knight of the Road, a work by EDWARD VILES.”

The pair took their booty away “and in the shade of a contiguous fir-wood, lying on blueberries, I made my first acquaintance with the art of Mr. Viles.”

Stevenson could not have found the name Edward Viles in those half-a-dozen anonymous numbers so where could he have come across the information so confidently put forth? “Treasure Island; or, the Mutiny of the Hispaniola,” with one woodcut by William Boucher, cartoonist on “Judy,” appeared in Volume 19 of James Henderson’s “Young Folks” from October 1, 1881, to January 28, 1882. He also contributed “The Black Arrow,” running from June to October, 1883, and “Kidnapped,” May to July, 1886.

Councilor J. Wilson Maclaren accompanied R. L. S. through his old haunts in Edinburgh. He remembers “McIndoo’s shooting-gallery, that foul-smelling underground tunnel, near the Royal Exchange. We had six shots each, and Stevenson missed the stone target twice. I was more successful; for I struck the bulls-eye and rang the bell five times, the secret being that most of my time as spent in McIndoo’s when a High Street Boy. The uncanny surroundings and the smell of the gunpowder must have stirred the adventurous memories of R. L. S.; for he confessed to me that, although ten years my senior, he still had a hankering to write for the ‘penny-bloods’ a type of literature such as The Boys of London and New York, to which I was contributing some pirate yarns at that time. Stories such as ‘Sweeney Tod,’ ‘The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,’ ‘Three-fingered Jack,’ ‘Dick Turpin,’ ‘David Haggart,’ ‘Jack Harkaway,’ and ‘Tom Wildrake’s Schooldays,’ were then very popular among youthful readers. The boys’ favourite hero in fiction at that time was ‘Cornelius Dabber’, the timber-legged character much addicted to drinking rum. When ‘Treasure Island’ was published in Young Folks, it seemed to me that the prototype of John Silver was my old friend and hero ‘Cornelius’ turned into a buccaneer.”

[Note; The Waterloo Directory shows two publishers of “The Boys of London and the Boys of New York,” (1877-1900) from James and Robert Jackson in Wigan, Lancashire and “Boys of London and New York,” (1879-1899) from Edwin J. Brett in London. It was a mixture of American stories printed from stereotypes from Canadian born Norman Munro’s “The Boys of New York” and original British stories.]

On 8 February 1924 Sir James Barrie told a story about Stevenson's love of penny dreadfuls during a speech on English Public Schools:

"Many years afterwards Robert Louis Stevenson, writing to me from Samoa of a visit he had lately paid to Sydney, described how he had gone into a booksellers' shop where they showed him all the newest and choicest books. But he said to them, "I want no thoughtful works today; show me 'Sixteen String Jack the Footpad,' or 'Black Bill the Buccaneer.'"

James Henderson recalled (“Bought Treasure Island for Three Dollars a Column” May 18, 1912, Winnipeg Free Press) that during the course of serial publication of “Treasure Island” in November Stevenson was a frequent visitor to the offices of “Young Folks” in Red Lion Court where Henderson gave mid-day gatherings for his authors and editors. In September while awaiting publication of his story R. L. S. was already excitedly planning his next boy’s story for Henderson, to be titled “Jerry Abershaw, a Tale of Putney Heath.” By February 15, 1882 he was asking his friend Henley to send him the “Newgate Calendar.” Roadside inns, felon literature, and highwaymen were constantly on his mind.

W. E. Henley said that “Young Folks” authors such as Alfred R. Phillips, author of the wildly popular serial “Don Zalva the Brave” were “in no wise model citizens; they had their weaknesses, and (on his (Stevenson’s) editor’s report), were addicted to the use of strong waters, so that they had to be literally hunted for their copy.” Stevenson dedicated his novel “The Black Arrow to Phillips.” A serial titled “Sir Claude the Conqueror” appeared a bit previous to “Treasure Island.” An editor’s note on November 12, 1881 regretfully informed the readers that Sir Claude was to be discontinued; “we should not have broken off the story thus suddenly if we had not been forced to do so by circumstances which we need not describe in detail.”

Stevenson wrote to Gosse on November 9, 1881 : “See no. 571, last page; and article, called Sir Claude the Conqueror, and read it aloud in your best rhythmic tones; mon cher, c’est épatant. The story in question, by the by, was a last chance given to it’s drunken author; not Villiers -- that was a nom de plume -- but Viles, brother to my old boyhood’s guide, philosopher and friend, Edward Viles, author of Black Bess and Blueskin : a Romance. There is a byway of literary history for you; and in its poor way, a tragedy also.” 

Two days later he wrote to James Henderson “I was heartily sorry to find your poor friend Viles or Villiers had come to grief. Alas ! a little tragedy in it’s way.” In addition to Viles there were other contributors from the penny dreadful field contributing to “Young Folks” that R. L. S. may have conversed with, Charles Stevens and Percy Bolingbroke St. John. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that Stevenson learned of Viles authorship of “Black Bess” through Henderson’s offices in Red Lion Court, quite possibly from Edward Viles brother Walter.

Edward Henry Viles was born November 21, 1841 at 41 Freeschool Street, St. Olave’s, Southwark, London. “Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road, a Tale of the Good Old Times,” was published by Edward Harrison on August 8, 1863. Probably he was also involved with Harrison’s “Boys’ Miscellany,” described by Jay as “essentially the first periodical of what we may term the sensational character” which preceded “Black Bess,” appearing weekly from March 7, 1863 to February 27, 1864. The September 19, 1863 issue began serializing the anonymous “Sixteen-String Jack, the Daring Highwayman.”

He was next occupied with “TheYoung Ladies’ Journal” which ran from April 13, 1864 to February 1920 and “The Gentleman’s Journal” running from 1869 to 1872 when it merged with “The Young Ladies’ Journal.” Frank Jay said both periodicals were published by E. Harrison and Edward Viles, so perhaps they had a partnership. Viles had made enough money by 1870 to build and occupy the magnificent Pendryl Hall in Codsall Wood, Stafford, impossibe on the rates paid a penny dreadful hack no matter how prolific he was. By this time he was also assisting the eccentric Frederick James Furnivall with editing “The Fraternitye of Vacabondes.”

Frank Jay said Viles “was also a very keen and ardent collector of “Bloods” and “Penny Dreadfuls.” The writer was told by a well-known secondhand book-seller that Viles engaged him to employ a four wheeled cab and go round to all the old lending libraries and secondhand booksellers and buy up all the books of this kind he came across, and in this manner he acquired an immense stock which, at his death were sold by auction and commanded big prices.”

The (anonymous) works attributed to Edward Viles are;

1863 *Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road. A Tale of the Good Old Times* Anon. Illustrated by Robert Prowse and others. No. 1 August 8, 1863. E. Harrison, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street.

1864 *Gentleman Clifford and his White Mare Brilliant; or, the Ladies’ Highwayman* Anonymous. Illustrated by Moore and Williamson. London : E. Harrison.

1866 *Blueskin : A Romance of the Last Century* By the author of “Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road” &c. Illustrated by Robert Prowse and others. Edward Harrison, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street.

1868 * The Black Highwayman, Being the Second Series of Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road* Illustrated by Robert Prowse. Edward Harrison, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street. Jay has 1866-1868.

A comparison of “Blueskin” to the works of James Malcolm Rymer has convinced me that Rymer was the true author of “Blueskin,” (and possibly of “The Black Highwayman” as well),although he had already covered the story of Blueskin in his masterful 1860 penny dreadful “Edith the Captive; or, The Robbers of Epping Forest.” “Blueskin” and “Black Highwayman” both bore the words “by the author of Black Bess” on the title page to capitalize on the success of the interminable “Black Bess,” a ploy long in use by other publishers. For instance “Tyburn Tree; or, The Mysteries of the Past” By James Lindridge was “by the Author of The Old Manor House,” whose real author was gothic novelist Charlotte Smith.

“Gentleman Clifford” is wretched writing even by penny dreadful standards and bears little resemblance to the style of “Black Bess,” which (if I am correct) leaves one penny dreadful work on Viles resume, and that contested, which bears little resemblance to any of the above mentioned works, “Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road, a Tale of the Good Old Times.” Even this may have been the joint work of a variety of what historian Bill Blackbeard once termed “pocket hacks,” numerous authors working under the supervision of the author with the contract; i.e. Edward Viles. 

I had always thought that “Black Bess,” was the work of a multitude of hacks but after reading the entire work I can say that the style is remarkably consistent throughout, and the entire work shows that it is not just a series of improbable captures and escapes ad infinitum, but was carefully planned and plotted from the start.

*Photo of Pendryl Hall courtesy Trefor Thomas. Thanks to Peter Ross.